Balochistan continues to mourn: Five more killed

The Mineral Rich Balochistan being the largest but the most backward province of Pakistan remains somber with many rightful grievances against the state. The extrajudicial killings of Baloch activists, scholars, journalists, human rights and political activists is not something new to talk about but the dejected part is how state and other institutions remain inconsiderate on the butchery and violent actions of the perpetrators against the unheard Balochistan.

Balochistan today mourns the death five more unarmed activists with their bodies being dumped recklessly in Gawadar and Khuzdar.

On Sunday 9th October 2011, The mutilated bodies of Waheed baloch (A 9th standard student and 16 year old Baloch activist) and Ghulam Ullah Baloch were found in Khuzdar district of balochistan, bullet riddled body of Abdul Khaliq Baloch was discovered from Kulaanch area of Gwadar, and the remaining two have not been identified as yet. There have been 207 such cases since July 2010.

The victims were reported to have been missing for weeks and some of them for years without any charge against them, the illegal detention of Baloch activists does seem to make sense if Balochistan is viewed as a colonial territory of people demanding right of self determination and freedom of expression.

There is considerable evidence of Pakistan’s military Intelligence wing (MI), ISI and paramilitary forces (FC) being involved in the baloch genocide as highlighted by HRW in a report issued in second quarter of the current year.

The report highlighted “Since last year a new trend of enforced disappearances has been observed, with Baloch activists being abducted by law enforcement officials and kept incommunicado for several days. After a while, it is learnt that they had been extra judicially killed. This method makes it easy for the abductors to wash away all evidence of the disappearance: no question of FIRs, legal process or blame. Widespread disappearances at the hands of the state agents started at the time of former President Musharraf. Now under a civilian government, this phenomenon continued and the disappearances are followed by extrajudicial killings, in particular in the province of Balochistan”

The Law and order situation in Balochistan is alarming but the current government doesn’t seem to get out of blame game, blaming the previous government for current balochistan situation, ignoring the fact that all the retrospective governments along with their military allies are themselves responsible for baloch genocide and the precarious situation in the province.

“The PPP government did whatever it could to pamper an army of more than 50 ministers in the provincial government to minimize internal rebellion,” said a senior newspaper editor in Quetta. “What it failed to do was to grapple with the human rights issues, restrict the extra-constitutional role of the Frontier Crops (FC) and bring all Baloch armed groups to the negotiating table.”

Balochistan is facing the fifth insurgency ever since Pakistan’s inception and the state has completely failed to safeguard the rights of ordinary citizens rather playing the dirty role of a human rights abuser. The extra-judicial killings of noncombatant civilians must be universally condemned and the perpetrators be brought to book.